Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Top 5 Holiday Secrets by Kendall Kulper

To celebrate the holidays, the authors at Darkly Delicious YA are dishing about what we love (and hate) about the holidays. Here today is Kendall Kulper, author of Salt & Storm.Click here to learn more about Kendall and her work.

Holiday Embarrassing
Moment:

The Christmas before the husband and I were engaged, we were
talking about what to get his parents for Christmas when I joked that the only
thing we could give them that they’d actually want would be a grandchild.
Husband laughed, agreed, and said it was too bad it’d be a couple more years
before we could actually do that.

Flash-forward to two weeks later, we’re at my parents’ house
for their Christmas party, my mom and mother-in-law are talking to the husband
when I hear from across the room the husband say, “You’ll never guess what
we’re giving you for Christmas!”

ohnodon’tsayitdon’tsayititwasjustajoke
I think, just as the husband says “A grandchild!” I run into the room, skidding on my three-inch-heels, to see the moms
with matching looks of shock.

“Not right now!” I say. “Grandchild in, like, five years!”

The moms let out a sigh of relief and my mom, ever the
pragmatist, said, “Thank goodness, because otherwise that wedding dress would never fit.”

Worst Gift I
Ever Received:

My dad is
so terrible at giving gifts, it’s endearing. I’d say they’re joke gifts except
that he completely, 100% is not kidding and also he gets offended if we act
like we don’t like them. Here is an (abridged) list of some of the more WTF
presents he’s given me and my family:

An empty, page-free photo album, which had been sitting in
one of our closets for at least 20 years (“But you like photos!”).

A single copy of George Magazine—the now-defunct, political
magazine—to my completely-uninterested-in-politics, special education teacher
mom.

Brand-new baseball cards to the husband (he then immediately
asked if he could have them back).

CDs, books, and DVDs clearly more in line with his
interests, after giving which he says “If you don't want it, I'll take it.”

A book entitled “Teach Your Kids Financial Independence.”

Favorite
Holiday Movie/Book:

I could
actually talk for days about the perfection that is It’s a Wonderful Life. Every year, I make a point to see it at
least once, and every year the husband takes bets on how long I’ll last before
I burst into tears. It’s just so wonderful and beautiful and inspiring and
humble and the things it says about community and family and responsibility and
taking pride in your work and finding meaning in the small things and Imma just
leave this right here:

"I feel that in a small way we are doing something
important. Satisfying a fundamental urge. It's deep in the race for a man to
want his own roof and walls and fireplace, and we're helping him get those
things in our shabby little office."

[weeping] Just
please watch it right now please.

Favorite/Worst
Holiday Tradition:

This is both a favorite and a worst: My parents, especially
my mom, have always gone sort of—I guess the nice way to put it would be
overboard?—on Christmas. I’m talking the whole house, inside and out, covered
in wreaths and bells and lights and bright red bows. She sets up nutcrackers on
each step of the stairs and has a collection of thirty (for real) photos of our
family with Santa, all the way back to when my brother was a baby. But the
best, and simultaneously the worst, tradition we have is the Christmas
scavenger hunt.

This started out when my brother and I were really little:
my mom would place clues around the house and we’d go from one spot to another,
following the clues until we got to the end, where there’d usually be some
special present for us.

Since we’ve gotten older, though, the scavenger hunt has
evolved into a multi-hour extravaganza of sharing our favorite things and
feelings about the past year. So we wander from room to room, reading rhymes
and then, like, talking about the best book we read that year. It’s fun, but so brutally long. One year we actually
had to take a break for lunch. It’s one of those sweet things that also makes
me realize just how weird and wonderful my family is.

Favorite/Worst
Holiday Treat:

Favorite: My
sister-in-laws gingerbread cookies should be outlawed, they are so good.
They’re always puffy and perfect and not too sweet, which means I usually eat
three or four at a time. She and my mother-in-law have been perfecting this
recipe for the last few years and they finally completely nailed it, but even
though I consider myself a perfectly adequate cook, I’ve never gotten it right.
Hers are like these perfect little gingerbread cakes and mine are like
clove-flavored sawdust cookies.

Worst: I just
can’t get behind mulled anything. Wine, cider, rum—every time I see it on a
menu somewhere, I always think it’s going to be amazing and delicious and then
as soon as I drink it I’m like “You know what would be better? If they took out
all the spices.”